News
Former actress Samantha Geimer says she never had a problem with director Roman Polanski drugging and raping her when she was 13.
AFP via Getty Images
Roman Polanski sex victim Samantha Geimer said that she never had a “problem” with being drugged and raped by the director when she was just 13 years old.
Geimer told Polanski’s wife Emmanuelle Seigner in an interview published by French magazine Le Point that the 1977 rape — Polanski’s first sexual assault scandal — had no lasting effects on her.
“Let me be very clear: what happened with Polanski was never a big problem for me,” Geimer told Seigner in the piece translated by IndieWire.
“I didn’t even know it was illegal, that someone could be arrested for it. I was fine, I’m still fine. The fact that we’ve made this [a big deal] weighs on me terribly. To have to constantly repeat that it wasn’t a big deal, it’s a terrible burden.”
The then-43-year-old Polanski fed Geimer champagne and Quaaludes during a photo shoot at actor Jack Nicholson’s house before pouncing on the teenager in spite of her protests.
Polanski was convicted and ordered to a 90-day psychiatric evaluation before sentencing but was released after just 42 days and fled to Europe.
He was detained by Swiss police in 2009 while traveling to the Zurich Film Festival in regard to the US’s outstanding arrest warrant.
He was detained for 10 months until the Swiss court released Polanski after deciding against extradition because of potential technical faults in the U.S. request and because he had for years come to Switzerland in good faith.
He has not been hit with additional charges.
The light sentence was enough punishment for the director, Geimer said, who has repeatedly asked the US to drop the rape charges against him.
“The extradition attempt, the fact that Roman was arrested like that, it was so unfair and so in opposition to justice,” Geimer said.
“Everyone should know by now that Roman has served his sentence. Which was… long, if you want my opinion. From my side, nobody wanted him to go to jail, but he did and it was enough. He paid his debt to society. There, end of story.
“He did everything that was asked of him until the situation went berserk he had no other choice but to flee. Anyone who thinks that he deserves to be in prison is wrong. It isn’t the case today and it wasn’t the case yesterday,” she added.
Geimer — who sued Polanski in 1988 for sexual assault, intentional infliction of emotional distress and seduction — has repeatedly defended him over the last few decades.
She believes the director, who has multiple rape accusations lodged against him, has taken responsibility for forcing himself on her when she was a teen.
